What We Studied
I thought it would be nice to take Tuesday off and spend some time at the park (it was going to be in the 60s). The kids could play and I could get some random planning work done (and maybe read a bit). We didn’t have a coop field trip scheduled, so I thought it would be perfect. Unfortunately things did not turn out well. The kids were really thrown and complained all day. Wednesday felt like we were trying to get back to normal. So not a great week. We did cover some topics and lessons, but attitudes were not great.
Literature and Poetry
We continued reading some African Folktales this week.
Nobiah’s Well by Donna W. Guthrie
Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock by Eric A. Kimmel
Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott
A Story A Story by Gail E. Haley
The Best Keeper of Lalibela by Cristina Kessler
The Lions’s Drum by Steven Gregory
Clever Tortoise by Francesca Martin
Dinosaur Dinner (With a Slice of Alligator Pie) by Dennis Lee
Math
We moved onto Unit 5 covering measurement. Mainly the chapter focuses on centimeters, meters, kilometers and inches, feet, yards, and miles. We’ll probably circle back to multiplication and division practice after Unit 5.
Singapore Math Common Core Edition 3A
Primarily Logic
Social Studies
This week we learned about the Khmer Empire. Arthur really enjoyed studying the images of Angkor Wat. We followed up out history lesson with a few pictures books about Cambodia.
DK Timelines of Everyone
When on Earth
DK History
Explorers (Henri Mouhot)
DK Timelines of Everything
Judge Rabbit and the Tree Spirit by Lina Mao Wall
The Last King of Angkor Wat by Graeme Base
Arthur Independent Time
To allow for one-on-one time with Quentin, I have added an hour of independent work time for Arthur. Each week, he will have a mix of packet work (mostly grammar and math review), independent reading time, and special projects. Many of his projects will be aligned with our literature selections (some taken from B&R Language Arts curriculum) and history. This week, he focused on packet work and some random building projects.
Science and STEAM Coop
Continuing with our Dinosaur unit from Blossom and Root! We finally got to the Cretaceous period!
Everything Awesome About Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Beasts by Mike Lowery
The Story of Life: Evolution by Katie Scott
Life: The First Four Billion Years by Martin Jenkins
When the Whales Walked and Other Incredibly Evolutionary Journeys by Dougal Dixon
Prehistoric: Before the Dinosaurs by David West
DK Prehistoric
Prehistoric by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
DK Dinosaur
DK Where on Earth? Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Beasts
Dinosarium by Chris Wormell
In Search of Dinosaurs by Dougal Dixon
The Early Cretaceous
When Sue Found Sue: Sue Hendrickson Discovers Her T. rex by Toni Buzzeo
Art/Music
Nothing this week
Quentin
I have scheduled at least four 1-hour time blocks for one-on-one time with Quentin. I bought Blossom and Root’s Early Years Volume 2 curriculum to use as our base. I love the variety of activities and some of the bigger projects included. For ELA, we finished our overview of each letter of the alphabet! We’ll do some whole alphabet review for the rest of the semester before starting phonetics in January. In math, Quentin practiced his skills and worked on a Khan Academy unit about basic geometry. We also talked about the seasons.
ELA
Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers
My “xyz” Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
Yoko Yak’s Yakety Yakking by Barbara deRubertis
Zachary Zebra’s Zippity Zooming by Barbara deRubertis
Math
Other
Smart Start STEM K
Field Trip
No field trip this week, just an ill-fated park visit.
Documentary Selection
I have carved out a one hour time block each week to watch a documentary related to our studies. We didn’t actually watch anything this week, but made up for it by all the PBS Eons videos for our dinosaur unit.
Misc. - Random picture books read
Old Tracks, New Tricks by Jessica Petersen
Car Wash by Sandra Steen
Float by Daniel Miyares
The Big Umbrella by Amy June Bates
Chicken Frank, Dinosaur by S.K. Wenger
Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert
Monster Trucks by Joy Keller
Snacks on a Train by Kathryn Dennis
School Bus by Donald Crews
High
Finally getting to the Cretaceous for dinosaurs. Arthur has been desperately wanting to talk about the Spinosaurus since we start, but they didn’t live until about 70 million years ago. We got there this week!
Low
The utter failure of Tuesday. It was bad, real bad.
Next Week
Finishing a few African folktales before start The Wind in the Willows
Mastering measurements
Moving forward in time for the Dinosaur Unit
Making time for lots of reading and some board games
Next up on the TBR pile:
